Into the Ring With Herb Caen

Now I get into the ring with Herb, to talk about my vacation and bore everybody to death. What defeated him will surely defeat me, but here goes.

I’m in Dubrovnik. First thing that happened, a cab driver ripped me off. He looked like Bill Murray, which should have warned me that he was too smart to be trustworthy. But I have his name, and I know he does tours, and I’m going to have restitution or else I will cost him lots more than twenty dollars. Lots, lots more.

Ah, yes, the true travel. You know, where you go around singing “I Like to Be in America” from West Side Story and you have absolutely no idea why.

These Croatians do a lot of smoking. It’s not enough to say that mothers smoke while looking down at their babies in their carriages. Actually, I think the babies might be smoking. If you go into a restaurant, they frisk you, and if you don’t have a pack of cigarettes, they hand you one.

Yes, I exaggerate, but it can be rough, even in outdoor restaurants. My wife thinks I’m crazy, but I hold up a finger to see which way the wind is blowing before I choose my table in a restaurant.

Anyway, I chose Croatia on the basis of a Rick Steves video from 2000, in which Rick said that tourism was down and that, for the time being, shrewd travelers had this gem to themselves . . . Well, that was 2000. This place is overrun, especially around noon, when everybody from the cruise ships come in for their four hour stop.

I don’t even understand what people enjoy about the tourist experience. They come in swarms. They end up not seeing a single Croatian who isn’t operating a gelato stand. They buy a t-shirt or a hat, walk around and say they were here.

If I knew that Old Town Croatia was like this, I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever have come here.

This is not to say I’m not having a good time. But I’m having to work at it, going to different places, avoiding the crowds, etc. Maybe I’ll get around to some of the things I’m doing, if I can delude myself into thinking you’d be interested. Bottom line is, this is a GORGEOUS part of the world and, smoking aside, the Croatians are great, very relaxed, kind of austere looking but in fact quite friendly and nice.

But on to another thing. The hotel situation in Dubrovnik. The Old Town, pictured above, is the raison d’etre of travel to this city. However, the hotel options are few. You can stay in a “soba”; that is, a room in someone’s house, which you can’t book in advance; you can only show up hoping to get it. Or you can stay in a hotel far, far, far away from the old town and the whole point of being here.

OR — you can spend a lot of money and stay in a fancy hotel right outside the city walls. I’m going for my lungs over here — that’s New Yorkese for spending a lot of money — to the tune of 500 bucks a night, which I mention only to convince you that I’m rich. But I’m not. Not even close. Not even close to close. Not even close to someone who knows someone who heard about someone who bumped into someone rich on an elevator. On top of that, Croatian hotels are like American hotels (and unlike Italian hotels). In an Italian hotel, if they say the rate is 200 euros a night, at the end of five days the bill is 1,000 euros. In Croatia, there’s tax, there’s tax on tax, and there’s five dollars for every peanut you eat in the minibar, etc. In Zagreb, I stayed in a place that was 250 euros a night and ended up paying 400. I don’t know how it happened.

Does this sound like a bad time? Actually, I went out to the most gorgeous beach I’ve ever seen today and got more calm then I’ve been in a good long while.

I know I’m having a good time for another reason, too: How I feel when I see the people who are checking out. I see them with their roller bags, waiting for the elevator, and it’s like something out of a Bergman movie, only this time Death is invisible. Their time is up, and I feel both giddy that mine isn’t and threatened because mine will be.

Still, for now on, no more tourist destinations. Madrid, not Barcelona. Warsaw, not Krakow. Berlin, not Munich. Any suggestions?